It is known that as a method of changing a speed of a motor such as a brushless motor (IPM motor) for use in a compressor or the like of air conditioner equipment, a PWM drive method that modulates a pulse width by changing a duty ratio of a pulsed wave based on a particular carrier frequency is used. In the PWM drive method, to attain a waveform of a current flowing through the motor, the pulse width is modulated using the carrier frequency having a higher frequency than the current waveform. Therefore, a higher harmonic component corresponding to the carrier frequency in the PWM is superposed on the current waveform.
A loss of the motor is classified into an iron loss indicating a loss in a case where a core is magnetized and a copper loss indicating a loss caused by an electric resistance of a coil during excitation. The iron loss is a sum of a hysteresis loss attributed to a magnetic characteristic of the core and an eddy-current loss caused by electromagnetic induction inside of the core. It is known that a ratio of the hysteresis loss and a ratio of the eddy-current loss increase as a frequency of alternating magnetic flux (alternating current) for rotating the motor is higher. Because of this, if the higher harmonic component corresponding to the carrier frequency is superposed on the alternating current flowing through the motor, higher harmonic magnetic flux is generated by a current corresponding to the higher harmonic component, resulting in an increase in the iron loss. In particular, the carrier frequency in the PWM drive tends to increase as a size of the brushless motor decreases and an output of the brushless motor increases. Therefore, a reduced efficiency caused by the increase in the iron loss presents severe problems.
As a solution to such a problem, it is known that a yoke of a stator is configured to have portions in which a stress is made different from that of another portion of the yoke, to suppress the higher harmonic magnetic flux generated by the PWM drive (e.g., see Patent Literature 1). Specifically, for example, hollow portions, swaged portions, etc., are provided in an outer peripheral surface or inner peripheral surface of the yoke, and the stator is fastened to an interior of a case by shrink-fit, etc., to increase a compressive stress in the hollow portions, the swaged portions, etc.
Patent Literature 1: Japanese-Laid Open Patent Application Publication No. 2010-158095